Bonfires
by PadawannaB
Summary: Jack took a deep breath, letting the mixed scent of smoke and crisp November air, both stinging and fresh, wipe the last of the after-death wooziness and sense of misplacement from his head, and that's when it hit him.


**Hi, I'm back! Trying to write my first multi-chaptered story and suffering from a massive writer's block, I tried to clean my head up by posting this. Hope you enjoy!**

**Don't own anything.**

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><p><span>Bonfires<span>

When Jack woke up, the first thing he noticed was that he was lying on something soft.

With all his experience in the field, it didn't take him long to realise that it was a human body. To be precise, it was the body of Ianto Jones. _Now we're talking about a _different_ sort of field_. He lifted his head and winced at the aftershock of pain that always came when he died by snapping his neck. Jack gazed down the length of his coat to see Ianto's arms, blood still in his hands, appearing from underneath him, wrapped around his chest. Jack dreaded to think how cold he would be without their shared body heat, the winter night was freezing and the melting snow was seeping through his shoes.

Normally after coming back to life Jack would immediately jump up and try to get back on track with the goings on, but now he felt content with just staying on the ground. Ianto was there; the feeling of being dragged over a thousand broken windows was fading. All was good. _So very good_.

The tree that had finally stopped the downhill slide of the SUV was burning along the smouldering wreckage of the car. The orange and red and bright white hues blurred together and lit up the sky and the snow, the smoke swirling up towards the dark blue space spread above them. In Jack's lingeringly disoriented and fuzzy mind it looked like a bonfire, like one of those they'd had back at Boeshane, on the beaches, when the stars came out and the wind spinners were still. They'd laid a blanket on the sand and watched the colours, laughing and warm, happy. _Maybe he had hit his head harder than he thought..._

Jack took a deep breath, letting the mixed scent of smoke and crisp November air, both stinging and fresh, wipe the last of the after-death wooziness and sense of misplacement from his head, and that's when it hit him.

He had died from a broken neck, forehead knocking on the steering wheel when the SUV had skidded out of control.

There were no wounds, his coat wasn't cut, only a little singed.

_So where had the blood on Ianto's hands come from?_

Whatever unclear thoughts the edges of his mind still harboured were quickly gone. The world seemed to slow down, the only sound in the sudden eerie quiet was the blood humming in his ears with the rhythm of his heartbeat. His vision clouded, he felt numb and heavy.

Senses heightened in the dark: he couldn't feel Ianto breathing, his chest simply didn't rise and fall underneath Jack's head. In the corner of his eye he could see the sickeningly red tint of the snow around them. There were no whispered words in Welsh, no gentle reassurances.

A testing, quiet _Ianto?_ escaped from his lips, unnoticed to even himself.

Blood humming in his ears, blood on the snow, blood on Ianto's hands, fire dying, _dying_, darkness coming, silent.

"Oh shit, Ianto."

Then the world skipped to normal speed and he quickly scrambled up, arms flailing in attempt to gain a hold from something to haul himself off the other man.

_Oh shit, oh shit..._

"Ianto, Ianto! Wake up, Ianto! Ianto? Ianto, I need you to wake up!"

Tapping his cheek, running a hand through his hair. Touching his skin, cold, pale. Eyes closed.

_Oh shit._

Ianto's left side was a horrifying mess, covered by the suit that was ripped and torn and wet with snow and sticky, red..._ Oh God, oh no, nonono_. The passenger door, must have been the passenger door, crushed against a tree or a rock, crushed and pushed inwards, impact ripping through metal, wires, plastic, fabric, skin, flesh.

Ianto had dragged him out, out of the burning car, dragged as far as he could and then just fallen to the ground, too tired to continue. _That idiot, Ianto should have just left him, he could survive the fire. But no, of course he had to save him and bleed all over the forest, that fool._

Bravery is often foolish.

Jack hoped that he would've paid more attention to the icy road, instead driving too fast and taking the curve a second too soon; that Ianto would've been a bit more selfish, instead of being the Ianto Jack loved and admired. That he would've come around a bit quicker after waking up, instead of just lying there and thinking about some fucking bonfires...

_Okay, calm down._

Phones. Where was his phone? Jack started tapping his pockets frantically, and then went through Ianto's coat, wincing at the amount of blood. Ianto didn't even react to the search.

The phones weren't there, which meant that they had either dropped somewhere during their escape, or... With a sinking feeling, Jack followed their route with his eyes, trailing backwards over the staggering footsteps and smudged tracks, all the way to the burnt remains of the car. Okay, so no phones. _Comms!_

Clicked on, static, no response. _Fuck._ He'd given Gwen a free night, after losing Owen and Tosh the amount of time she spent with Rhys had reduced to near zero. Rift monitors promised a quiet evening, he'd been feeling great, Ianto had promised to stay over in case of 'emergencies of undefined nature'.

Gwen was probably asleep already, the Torchwood issue comm unit on her bedside table, off or unheard. Jack cursed aloud, never again would he be so kind. Every time he thought that things might just work out alright, the world and fates and whatever fucking bastards there were saw suitable to show him that kindness was never returned, and he would always be alone, no matter how nice he was.

Ianto should now sigh and roll his eyes, or say something kind and nice and painfully true. But he stayed silent, unconscious and pale as death. Jack shed off his greatcoat and spread it over the prone figure, pressing his hands on the hole the car crash had ripped through his lover. _Lover._

_Love-r._

_Had he ever actually said it?_

Breathing hitched, panicked, quickly thinking back to all the times when-

_Don't, there's no need to think about it, this will turn out good, he'll live and you have all the time in the world to tell him._

Except that he wouldn't say it, and they didn't have time.

In the dark, it was easy to say that the tears were because of the smoke.

. . .

Daylight came, and so came the mountain rescue team, so came Gwen and Rhys, blankets and white hospital walls, sighs of relief and a hand weakly gripping his. Ianto whispering words in Welsh; kind and nice and painful lies.

_~fin~_

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><p><strong>Hope you liked it! Let me know what you think, I need all the feedback I can get :)<strong>

**EDIT: due to the amount of confusion the ending caused, I changed it just a tiny bit. Hopefully this makes more sense, without losing the intended sort-of-vague feel it should have. Please, review or PM me if you think it needs more work or something, I just didn't want to make huge changes. Thanks to all who commented, I love you :)  
><strong>


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